Dooms Day

Today was the long awaited day that finally arrived. I left school at 12.20pm and reached home at about 12.45pm. Then, I took a shower, ate lunch and relaxed until 1.30pm. Then, I did violin practice until 2.45pm. We set off at about 3.10 and reached the verve music school 15 minutes before the exam (3.31pm). At that time, we were slightly worried as my accompanist was still stuck in a traffic jam. In the end, she didn't reach on time and I had to do the other tests first.

The examiner was a European guy. He was quite friendly. But Jean's hypothesis is that the more friendly examiners seem to be, the lower your marks. Now, this is scary. I did scales first. He asked for G major 3 octaves separate bow and I think I was smiling. Scales etc weren't that bad. When it came to double stop scales, he said, "E flat major, sixths". I was really happy. I thought I would be saved from the B flat thirds. But gah, he asked for that later and I was disappointed. It was slightly out of tune but it got better after a while. D major double stop octaves went well. Conclusion: Wasn't that bad. I got slightly shocked once or twice but it went alright.

Sight reading was good for 3 of 4 lines. The last line had some complicated rhythm which I didn't have time to look through within the 30 second try-out time. His 30secs seemed like 20. Sigh. I was suprised the high notes weren't that hard to play. Ms Kwok was right. It's the rhythm that trips me, not the notes. I ignored the rhythm at the last part as I was slightly lost but I managed the pizz at the end. Jean came back with the same story too.

Aural was easier than I thought. Execpt for modulation, Jean and I found out we both "tikamed" the answers. I asked to change my answer 3 times. Thankfully, the examiner was patient with my nonsense.

After the aural part, we found that my aural teacher had reached already so we continued with the pieces. Legende first. It was okay by my standards. The double stop part (aka blahblahblah) was slightly out of tune the first few bars but I stabilised after a while. Other than that, it went smoothly (i hope. Remember I'm ageing.). Czardas was alright too. I slipped once at the grace notes spiccato part. But the beginning and everything else was ok. The ending was good by my standards (so I went on to finish the last 2 bars, jie ying will know why). Gavotte en Rondeau didn't go that well. No major slips, but I could tell I was too excited to finish up the exam and get out of the room. My tempo was not very steady and I slipped a few times but I can't remember when and why. Jean said she was the opposite of me for pieces.

When I went out of the room, I was almost laughing. Yay, it's over now. Just have to wait for the results. Sigh. I think I'll pass, but I don't know with what. All I have gotten for my previous attempts were merit. Jean beat me all the time. And there's this joke she told me, "I got merit (married)". And most of the time, people who say this have suitable expressions on their faces.

There's tutti tomorrow and this whole week has been very torturing. Came back late everyday and didn't get enough sleep. I got sleepy at almost every opportunity. And I have to touch the violin for 4 hours tomorrow. Sigh. I need a good break. I won't practice on Sunday.